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Category: Phone and Technology Companies

Phone and technology companies Apple and Samsung have been feuding for years, to the point where each side has taken the other one to the steps of the Supreme Court.

The ongoing feud between both companies has been about various smartphone patents and the end result of this lawsuit will have consequences involving how technology companies will go about using different design patents. On one hand, Apple says that upholding the original law on patents will protect a person’s individual design for a patent, while on the other hand Samsung feels that a change in the law is necessary because without it, any new innovation will be crippled.

Both Silicon Valley companies now have to hear what the Supreme Court will say on this, given that they will be interpreting a law that was first written in 1887, barely a decade after the telephone was invented. In the lawsuit, Apple has accused Samsung of violating three different patents, which are for phones with a black face and rectangular shape, the phone’s front face and bezel and the colorful display that has sixteen different icons. Oddly enough, other courts have found that Samsung did indeed infringe on these patents involving smartphones.

However, these infringements are not what the Supreme Court is focused on, but rather on exactly how much is owed by Samsung to Apple for all of those infringements. Apple feels that Samsung owes for all of the total profits earned from the use of the smartphones and designs, which was originally $2.75 billion annually. Naturally, Samsung countered by saying they only owed a much smaller amount for a certain portion of profits tailored only for those certain designs.

According to a professor of law, the Court will look into what constitutes part of the manufacture, since according to the 1887 law that is essentially unchanged, $250 is the minimum amount one is entitled is a patent is violated.